Why is "Delete Hole" greyed out?

I'm at my wit's end trying to get any kind of consistent results with "delete special." It's ridiculous. Something this simple should work flawlessly. 

I'm trying to delete a whole bunch of measures at the start of a project, and move the rest of the project to the left to fill the gap. There is data in the measures I want to delete (quite a lot of it), so you would think that "delete special" would work. But after selecting all tracks, and highlighting the offending measures in the timeline, when I select "delete special," "Delete Hole" is greyed out. Why, might I ask, is this so? A little earlier, when I followed exactly the same process, that option was available. So I checked it, and everything was shifted to the left as expected. However, it didn't shift any of my automation lanes to the left (Why? Why?). It wouldn't let me undo it, but luckily I hadn't saved anything so I just closed and reloaded the project. Now, it's not letting me select "Delete Hole" at all. 

I'm so frustrated by this. I've tried following the X2 documentation for "Deleting measures or time from one or more tracks" here http://www.cakewalk.com/D...eq=EditingMIDI.33.html but it just doesn't work like they say it should. I have no idea why "Delete Hole" is greyed out. That's exactly what I want it to do and yet boom, no dice.  
 

I've had the same problem since Sonar 8.  Unfortunately, I think I just gave up the last time and used Sound Forge to cut the silent space.  In one case, however, I did not realize that one track had data that extended into the hole.  I deleted that track and was able to delete the hole.  The hole has to really be a hole of silence, I think.  But I agree.  It does not work as it should.

Yes, just write a single note anywhere in the area to be deleted and then you can.
This issue goes back years and years.
Don't really understand it and it can be frustrating when trying to remove space at the beginning of a song for example but, hey ho, it is what it is.

Because it’s tipped over the event horizon  

Bristol_Jonesey


I don't know if this will help, but try splitting all of your clips at the delete point, then you can just select the clips you want to delete.

Are any clips locked? This will cause a few problems if they are.

None of the clips span the delete point, and none of them are locked (haven't dipped my toe into clip locking yet )

swamptooth


..... then, when i select delete special (can't believe i can't assign a hotkey for that)

If it's a hotkey for "Delete Special" you are after use Alt+Ctrl+X - it produces the same dialogue - well almost. Cut as opposed to delete but the delete hole option is there as well.

@Sharke - Have you tried that key combo?